Travels with Dead Rat Packers

A post on Greg’s blog reminded me that whenever I’ve travelled it always seems that some American celebrity has died.

I remember being in Amsterdam in May 1990, sick as a dog and unable to leave my hotel room, barely even able to leave my bed. All day I lay there near-comatose, with CNN on the t.v. And every hour on the hour I watched the lights dim in Vegas in tribute to the late, great Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy’s death and being deathly ill in Amsterdam are forever linked in my brain.

Then in 1998, I was in Brazil on a work-related trip. I was sitting on a shuttle bus waiting to go to the conference centre, sitting next to a Tunisian man who was very high in the organization and who would’ve never spoken to me back at HQ, but since we were away from home apparently I was worthy to converse with. He pointed out the news-stand by our bus. Every Brazilian and foreign newspaper had big photos of Frank Sinatra and long tributes to Ol’Blue Eyes. And the Tunisian man was so pissed off. "So many important things are happening in the world," he fumed, "And all they care about is a dead American celebrity." (Of course, I’m thinking "but it’s Frank! He's the Chairman of the Board!" but I nodded politely and agreed.)